Saturday, 26 September 2009

In the last few weeks the momentum behind 1010 has been building, hopefully you have at least heard about their goal to get everyone to commit to cutting 10% of emissions in 2010, maybe you have even signed up?

Obviously we already help in many ways, I have planted 6 trees in the last few years as well as prunning 4 others which are already in my garden and allotment. Growing your own veg drastically cuts down on the food miles (I don't think miles walked counts) and we are all more aware of climate change as we have wet summers and hot sutumns.

But I still own a car, I still use gas and electriciy as well as water. Worst of all I still have to buy food from Tesco, most of which is overpackaged. At work I have less control over the environment so I recycle less of my waste and spend my day in front of a computer.

I have signed up to 1010 and am committed to making as many changes as I can to cut my emissions, hopefully I will see the immediate affect on my utility bills but I also hope to see the long term affect on my allotment, I really hope to continue growing cabbages and leeks, somehow I don't think an entire allotment of grapes and peaches will have the same appeal.

Sunday, 13 September 2009

I had a caterpiller attach on the spring cabbages but hopefully they will recover before spring, I really hate picking caterpillers off but it is still better than having to use chemicals. The local garden centre had spring cabbages and sprouting brocolli so my dismal preperations for winter have been overcome and I now have plenty of cabbage as well as a few kale and 2 rows of sprouting brocolli. I think that should be enough to see us through to spring.

Most of the potatoes have now been dug up, the Charlottes were quite sparse and the King Edwards have so far been disappointingly small but the Roosters are incrediable so I think we will still have more than enough to keep us fed.

The onions and garlic are dried and in store, the garlic is absolutly amazing and I am hoping to have success next year by replanting some of the cloves. I grew 4 varieties this year, the purple wright seem to be the most successful with a great flavour a huge bulbs. The overwintered onions also turned out to be pretty impressive although they are fairly lethal to cut.

The courgettes and sweetcorn have almost finished but the squash are still going strong so I will leave them until the leaves start to die off. So far I can see 4 crown prince although only 1 is fully ripe, and 3 of the suspicious marrow/pumpkin cross things.

Authumn is nearly here so most of the tasks will now be to clear things up, weed, and dig over ready for next year. The new raspberry canes are making a mockery of my raspberry support so that will be high on the list of winter tasks and the shed could do with some paint before I put the guttering up.

Saturday, 12 September 2009

Sweetcorn! And there is still plenty more in the freezer.As soon as you pick a cob the sugars start to turn to starch so I you don't plan to cook it immediately chuck the whole thing in the freezer and then cook it from frozen, the leaves are a little tricky to get off but persevere and you'll get there.

All of these cobs are from my Swift sweetcorn plants which I had intended to plant close together to encourage them to produce baby sweetcorn. Unfortunately the germination of my Swallow sweetcorn plants, intended for the corn on the cob, was so dreadful that I had to abandon the baby sweetcorn plan; well you can't go without corn on the cob can you?